Maple Syrup and Birthday Cupcakes
This past weekend a good friend from high school was visiting Boston. K had a conference here last week and stayed to hang out this weekend. On top of hanging out with friends, Butler made it to the Final Four! K went to Butler and is the president of his local alumni club!
On Saturday we decided to partake in some local fun by heading up to New Hampshire to go to a maple house where they boil maple syrup. We had beautiful weather on Saturday. It was a bit chilly but sunny and not a cloud in the sky. After arriving at the Grant Family Maple House, we had some food and got in line to learn all about how maple syrup is made.
What we learned is that the sap from the trees has about 2-3% sugar in it straight from the tree. At that percentage, it would take 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup!! So they first condense the sap until it reaches about 8% sugar. The sap is then boiled to evaporate off the water.
Once the temperature reads 7 degrees above the boiling point of water, you have syrup! The guy in the maple house even explained how they use a baraometer on the wall to get the barometric pressure so they know the exact boiling temperature of water for that given day. It was all very scientific and extremely interesting.
The small bottles of maple syrup were a sample from each batch they had made at the maple house this season. The guy explained that as the season goes on, the syrup tends to get darker due to the change in the amount of sugar in the sap.
Of course, we had to get some maple products while we were there. Obviously, maple syrup. We also got some maple candies, some maple sugar, and some maple pepper. Can’t wait to find creative ways to use the sugar and pepper. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know!
Also, since K’s birthday was last week, I made him some cupcakes to celebrate. I went with my go-to chocolate cupcake recipe. I love that you can whip these up by dirtying only one bowl and using a whisk! I dipped them in some ganache and topped with festive sprinkles. Aren’t they pretty?
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Very neat idea! I may have to try this out, since our house is filled with empty walls at the moment.
Aww this is such a cute idea! I’m not married yet, but when I am, I might consider it… It’s so classy-looking too 🙂
Sues
Love the idea and had to send it to my husband. You are so creative – what an excellent job putting it together! Thank you for posting.
What a great idea! Such a fun experience for you both to share! I’ve always wanted to make a map like this and you just gave me the motivation to do it 🙂 I love the map you used!
i made one of these for hubby for our first Christmas together. unfortunately we haven’t had as many opportunities as we hoped to travel so ours looks sad with the lackage of pins 🙂
I love this idea and it’s something we want to do too. Thanks for the motivation! Oh and we’ve been married 5 years so ours will be a not-so-newlywed map too. 😉
R
Love this idea! Thanks for sharing, I really want to do this!
That’s so crazy…I was just thinking about doing something like this the other day. I guess that means that I need to get on it. Thanks for the idea!
LOVE THIS! Ordering my map NOW!
Is this map only for heterosexual couples? haha j/k. You just wrote hubby (I guess you’re assuming all of your readers are females and are straight), and I was taken aback. This would be great for whenever my future wife and I get married. Thanks for sharing! It really is a cool idea!
Memória – I hope I didn’t offend you. I wasn’t making any assumptions about my readers. I was just speaking the way I talk. This map could be perfect for anyone or any group of people.
I looove this idea! I’m going to do it, even though I’m not married 🙂